The designation used in the regulations "Sports Grand Touring Cars" shows this intention. The big manufacturers, however, used them in a different way: Similar things have been done before in Group 4, for instance the Lancia Stratos.

In some cases these cars were sold at a loss and journalists [ who? In each group there were classes based on engine displacement with a 1.

Each class had different weight limits, maximum tyre sizes, etc. The original Renault 5 Turbo had a 1. Classes in Group B: When these rules were decided it was felt that these displacement restrictions would be enough to control power, but in the early and mids engineers learnt how to extract extraordinary amounts of power from turbo engines the same thing was happening in F1.

Lancia had designed a new car to Group B specifications, but the Lancia still had rear wheel drive and was thus less consistent than the Audi over different surfaces generally the Lancia had the upper hand on tarmac , with the Audi remaining superior on looser surfaces such as snow and gravel.

Nevertheless, the performed well enough for Lancia to capture the manufacturers title with a rally to spare, which was generally considered more prestigious at the time.

The low homologation requirements quickly attracted manufacturers to Group B. Opel replaced their production-derived Ascona with the Group B Manta , and Toyota built a new car based on their Celica.

Midway through the year Peugeot had joined the rallying scene with its Group B T The T16 also had four wheel drive and was smaller and lighter than the Audi Quattro.

A crash prevented the T16 from winning its first rally but the writing was on the wall for Audi. Despite massive revisions to the Quattro, including a shorter wheelbase , Peugeot dominated the season.

Although not without mishap: Vatanen plunged off the road in Argentina and was gravely injured when his seat mountings broke in the ensuing crash.

Timo Salonen won the champion title with 5 wins. Although the crash was a sign that Group B cars had already become dangerously quick despite Vatanen having a consistent record of crashing out while leading , several new Group B cars entered the rallying world in The stage was set for to be a very exciting season.

Portuguese national champion Joaquim Santos crested a rise, turning to his right to avoid a small group of spectators. This caused him to lose control of his RS The car veered to the right and slid off the road into the spectators.

Thirty-one people were injured and three were killed. All the top teams immediately pulled out of the rally and Group B was placed in jeopardy.

Disaster struck again in early May at the Tour de Corse. The car landed inverted with the fuel tanks ruptured by the impact. The combination of red hot turbocharger, Kevlar bodywork, and ruptured fuel tank ignited the car and set fire to the dry undergrowth.

By the time rescue workers made it to the remote spot some 30 minutes, by some accounts all that remained of the car was a blackened frame.

With no witnesses to the accident it was impossible to determine what caused the crash other than Toivonen had left the road at high speed.

Up until that stage he was taking stage win after stage win and leading the rally by a large margin with no other driver challenging him.

The crash came a year after Lancia driver Attilio Bettega had crashed and died in his Group B cars were immediately banned for Audi decided to quit Group B entirely after Corsica.

The final days of Group B would also be controversial. Peugeot immediately accused the Italians of favouring the Lancias. Their case was strengthened at the next event, the RAC Rally , when the British scrutineers passed the Peugeots as legal in identical trim.

Timo Salonen had won another two rallies during the season and became the most successful group B era driver with a total of 7 wins.

Although saw the end of the Group B cars on the world stage they did not disappear from motorsport. Peugeot adapted their T16 to run in the Dakar Rally.

Ari Vatanen won the event in , and Ford sold off their RSs to private buyers, with many being used in European Rallycross events from the beginning of till the end of The Metro 6R4 also became a frequent sight in Rallycross and the car was also entered in British and Irish national championship events.

The Ferrari GTO was built and sold the minimum requirement of cars to the public, however it never saw action in its category. To encourage innovative designs, ten examples of a car would have been required for homologation , rather than the required for Group B.

By the time of its cancellation, at least four Group S prototypes had been built: The cancellation of Group S angered many rally insiders who considered the new specification to be safer than Group B and more exciting than Group A.

The era of Group B is often considered one of the most competitive and compelling periods in rallying. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This article is about motor racing regulations. For other uses, see Group B disambiguation. Google Books 15 June Retrieved 2 May Archived from the original on 31 December Retrieved 14 January Written by Greg Stuart 23 November For many rally fans, the Group B era still represents the pinnacle of the World Rally Championship, a four year period from to when cars were allowed unlimited amounts of boost and rallying came close to rivalling Formula One in popularity.

Check out this Group B car that you can actually buy. So when Finnish driver Henri Toivonen fatally crashed at the Tour de Corse, rallying had its wings clipped and it was all over for Group B.

We choose the five greatest Lancia rally cars. Quite simply, the Quattro is the most important rally car of all time. There have been game changers in rally, but nothing on the scale of the Audi Quattro.

WRC manufacturers had initially resisted adopting four-wheel-drive on their cars, thinking that the extra weight and complexity of the systems would cancel out any advantages.

But when the original non-Group B Quattro debuted in , it immediately showed that a well-sorted four-wheel-drive system was the business.

When Audi brought out the Group B versions of the car, first the A1 and the A2 and then the radical Sport Quattro, the formula was refined; power figures were increasingly hiked to a reported bhp in , and the blueprint of modern rally cars was set.

Why we picked it: The Delta S4 perfectly embodied the brute force of Group B.

The low homologation requirements quickly attracted manufacturers to Group B. Opel replaced their production-derived Ascona with the Group B Manta , and Toyota built a new car based on their Celica.

Midway through the year Peugeot had joined the rallying scene with its Group B T The T16 also had four wheel drive and was smaller and lighter than the Audi Quattro.

A crash prevented the T16 from winning its first rally but the writing was on the wall for Audi. Despite massive revisions to the Quattro, including a shorter wheelbase , Peugeot dominated the season.

Although not without mishap: Vatanen plunged off the road in Argentina and was gravely injured when his seat mountings broke in the ensuing crash.

Timo Salonen won the champion title with 5 wins. Although the crash was a sign that Group B cars had already become dangerously quick despite Vatanen having a consistent record of crashing out while leading , several new Group B cars entered the rallying world in The stage was set for to be a very exciting season.

Portuguese national champion Joaquim Santos crested a rise, turning to his right to avoid a small group of spectators. This caused him to lose control of his RS The car veered to the right and slid off the road into the spectators.

Thirty-one people were injured and three were killed. All the top teams immediately pulled out of the rally and Group B was placed in jeopardy.

Disaster struck again in early May at the Tour de Corse. The car landed inverted with the fuel tanks ruptured by the impact.

The combination of red hot turbocharger, Kevlar bodywork, and ruptured fuel tank ignited the car and set fire to the dry undergrowth. By the time rescue workers made it to the remote spot some 30 minutes, by some accounts all that remained of the car was a blackened frame.

With no witnesses to the accident it was impossible to determine what caused the crash other than Toivonen had left the road at high speed.

Up until that stage he was taking stage win after stage win and leading the rally by a large margin with no other driver challenging him.

The crash came a year after Lancia driver Attilio Bettega had crashed and died in his Group B cars were immediately banned for Audi decided to quit Group B entirely after Corsica.

The final days of Group B would also be controversial. Peugeot immediately accused the Italians of favouring the Lancias.

Their case was strengthened at the next event, the RAC Rally , when the British scrutineers passed the Peugeots as legal in identical trim.

Timo Salonen had won another two rallies during the season and became the most successful group B era driver with a total of 7 wins.

Although saw the end of the Group B cars on the world stage they did not disappear from motorsport. Peugeot adapted their T16 to run in the Dakar Rally.

Ari Vatanen won the event in , and Ford sold off their RSs to private buyers, with many being used in European Rallycross events from the beginning of till the end of The Metro 6R4 also became a frequent sight in Rallycross and the car was also entered in British and Irish national championship events.

The Ferrari GTO was built and sold the minimum requirement of cars to the public, however it never saw action in its category. To encourage innovative designs, ten examples of a car would have been required for homologation , rather than the required for Group B.

By the time of its cancellation, at least four Group S prototypes had been built: The cancellation of Group S angered many rally insiders who considered the new specification to be safer than Group B and more exciting than Group A.

The era of Group B is often considered one of the most competitive and compelling periods in rallying. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This article is about motor racing regulations. For other uses, see Group B disambiguation. Google Books 15 June Retrieved 2 May Archived from the original on 31 December Retrieved 14 January Archived from the original on 27 October Archived from the original on 14 January Archived from the original on 24 March Retrieved 25 February Archived from the original on 8 March Group B Rally 1 January Group B Rally 4 January Group B Rally 1 May Archived PDF from the original on 5 July Retrieved 28 April B regulations but not homologated; project abandoned in favor of T So when Finnish driver Henri Toivonen fatally crashed at the Tour de Corse, rallying had its wings clipped and it was all over for Group B.

We choose the five greatest Lancia rally cars. Quite simply, the Quattro is the most important rally car of all time. There have been game changers in rally, but nothing on the scale of the Audi Quattro.

WRC manufacturers had initially resisted adopting four-wheel-drive on their cars, thinking that the extra weight and complexity of the systems would cancel out any advantages.

But when the original non-Group B Quattro debuted in , it immediately showed that a well-sorted four-wheel-drive system was the business.

When Audi brought out the Group B versions of the car, first the A1 and the A2 and then the radical Sport Quattro, the formula was refined; power figures were increasingly hiked to a reported bhp in , and the blueprint of modern rally cars was set.

Why we picked it: The Delta S4 perfectly embodied the brute force of Group B. But by , the rear-wheel-drive machine was starting to flounder against its four-wheel-drive rivals.

But then at the Tour de Corse, Toivonen lost control of the bhp S4 and was killed, along with his co-driver Sergio Cresto.